


The Hardest Choices Require the Strongest Wills

by BatmanWhoLaughss



Series: The Importance of Being Ben [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Ben Solo Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Missing Scene, POV Ben Solo, POV First Person, POV Kylo Ren, POV Male Character, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22320385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatmanWhoLaughss/pseuds/BatmanWhoLaughss
Summary: (SPOILERS FOR EP IX! Ben's POV during a key scene)I never did a thing right in my life. Not a damn thing. I failed at being a Jedi. I failed at being a Sith. I killed my father. My mother died, trying to save me. I ruined thousands of innocent lives. I couldn’t see how blind I’d been, how badly I lost my way. Even when I tried to do the right thing, I still failed.But I could do this. I could make this right. Just this once, Ben Solo could make the right choice.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Luke Skywalker & Ben Solo, Luke Skywalker & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: The Importance of Being Ben [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606558
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	The Hardest Choices Require the Strongest Wills

**Author's Note:**

> I really wish they showed us more of Ben's internal struggle during the films, so I wrote the fic. I was really intrigued by what his internal POV would be like at various moments. Hope y’all enjoy!
> 
> First in a series! I have a lot of ideas for good Ben POV moments, so I’m excited to share them with you.

_ Get up. _

_ Get. Up. _

Everything hurt. I was lying on top of a small outcropping in the rock. I managed to open my eyes, and even though dark spots danced at the edge of my vision, I could see the opening leading into the throne room above me. 

I groaned in pain. My leg was in agony, and I could feel blood running down my arm where I’d cut myself on a piece of rock. My ankle was definitely sprained, possibly broken. 

Above, I could hear Palpatine laughing, the cold, dark sound piercing me like ice. He’d tossed me aside like a piece of garbage, like it was effortless to him. I’d never felt power like that before. The Dark side seeped through every pore of this place, the raw hatred of the Sith consuming everything around us. Snoke told me I had strength, power over the Dark side. Whatever I thought I knew about the Force, whatever power I thought I had… it was nothing compared to this. 

I could see the stars shining through the opening in the cavern ceiling. Palpatine’s fleet was rising above it. My vision was swimming again, but I could just make out the tiny outlines of ships, flashing lights, and movement in the sky. Fast ships--  _ fighters. A battle? Was the Resistance attacking the Sith fleet? They’d have to be crazy… _

Suddenly, a bright light lit up the sky, lightning illuminating the ships as if summoned from…  _ no… it couldn’t be.  _

I felt the ripple in the Force with a jolt, just as I heard the cold, hateful laughter again. Fear, coming from pilots dropping out of the sky somehow, as they were caught in Palpatine’s web. Raw fear, powerful and dangerous. 

_ He’s won. I failed. I was too late. _

_ Rey… _

Had she fallen with me? I remembered her lying next to me, unconscious, but I was hazy on what happened next. I reached out to her through the Force, through the inexplicable connection we shared, and felt… hope! But also pain. Fear. Despair. Resolve, slowly replacing hope. She was fighting. But she was losing. 

_ Get. Up. _

I felt like it took all the strength I had, but I managed to flip onto my side, crying out in pain. My muscles screamed from the effort, and my breath came in heavy pants. It felt like moving a mountain. How the hell was I supposed to climb out of this canyon if I couldn’t even roll over?

_ Get up. She needs you. _

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and reaching out to the Force as I’d done a thousand times before. Meditation in times of stress was a useful way to gain strength, which I desperately needed right about now. I felt the darkness all around me, the hateful power of this cursed place. But, instead of drawing strength from it, instead of letting myself melt into the pure rage, now I felt… cold. Repugnant. Like something was crawling across my skin, waiting to bite.

I fought off the pain, still coming in waves, as I looked within. I could feel my thoughts and feelings, jumbled together in a disjointed mess. Pain. Hope. Fear. Compassion. Anger. Love. Loss. Some emotions I had tried to repress, others that had consumed my heart for years.

_ Split in two _ . Wasn’t that what Snoke said? The veil of the Dark side was still there, a curtain I’d pulled over myself for years, convinced it was the path to greatness. Convinced that it was the right choice. 

It was only now, as I felt the ugly energy of this place, the true nature of the Dark side and the Force, that I had a sense of clarity. 

Ironic, that a place stronger in the Dark side than any I’d ever felt before, was the place I would finally leave it behind. 

But could I really do it? Could I truly see the Light again, after all these years? 

‘ _ I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.’ _

_ ‘You do’ _

My father. My mother. My master. I failed them all. They tried to save me, tried to pull me back from the dark path, but I was too stupid to see it. 

Rey tried to save me too.  _ ‘I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand.’ _ She saw the man under the monster when even I couldn’t.  _ ‘I sense the conflict in you. You’ll turn.’ _

I couldn’t fail her too. I felt her defiance, her energy piercing through the darkness like a beacon. I owed it to her.

_ Get. Up. _

I braced my hands against the rocky surface, trying to remember what Luke taught me about combat meditation, and how do draw strength from the Force to fight fatigue and pain.

“Come on. Focus. Get up.”

I thought about my mother. My father. My love for them that I’d buried for so long under a mountain of hate. My compassion, which I didn’t know I still had, lurking deep down. All the emotions that fueled the Light side of the Force. My knee bent, my good foot bracing against the rocky ground. 

Then, like a blow to the head, I saw faces. Hundreds of them, thousands of innocents I’d killed in the name of Snoke, and of Kylo Ren. They passed through my vision like fleeting glimpses, and with each one, the horror of everything I had done sunk further in. Anguish rushed through me, burning like wildfire as tears seeped out from behind my still-closed eyes.

_ You’re a monster. You’re nothing. You deserve to die like a dog. _

It was my voice--  _ no, Kylo Ren’s voice, with that machine-like mask _ , but spoken from a thousand different faces. The cold unforgiving helmet of the Supreme Leader loomed in front of me. I cried out, falling onto my stomach again. I curled up into a ball as feelings ran through me in waves. Pain, and suffering, and rage, but turned inwards this time. Hatred of myself. 

_ Ben. _

The voice rang out like a shot in the dark. But it didn’t come from me. It rippled through the Force, a lone spark of light.

_...Master? _

_ Ben.  _ Luke Skywalker’s voice was warm, echoing in my head as if he were smiling.

“Master!” I spoke aloud this time. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I failed.” My voice broke on the last word.

Luke sighed. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his presence in the Force, here as if he were standing right next to me. 

‘ _ My mistakes set you on this path, Ben. I couldn’t be the master you deserved. But you are not a monster. _

“But… everything I’ve done…”

_ ‘Kylo Ren was a monster. Ben Solo is not. Leave the mask behind, Ben. Forgive yourself.’  _ His voice was fading, the last word no more than a whisper. __

“Master!” I called out to him again, but his presence was gone, vanishing as quickly as it came. “Master!”

Nothing. I was alone again. 

_ Forgive yourself. _

Behind my eyes, the mask of Kylo Ren loomed large. 

I stared at it, at the hateful face I’d worn for so many years. The product of a scared kid, consumed by power, corrupted by hatred for twisted ends. I looked at the faces of everyone I’d hurt, and took a deep breath. 

“I can’t undo what you did,” I said to Kylo. “But I can understand you. I can understand how lost you were. I can carry the burden of your mistakes.”

_ Forgive yourself. _

The mask faded away, and I was staring at my own face, with the yellow, corrupted eyes of the Dark side. 

“My name is Ben Solo. And I forgive you.”

Like a punch to the gut, I felt the Force flow through me, pure Light in the darkness. The power that I’d closed myself off from for so many years. I felt the two halves of my conflicted soul coming together, piece by piece. The energy pushed past the pain, the Light giving my aching body all the strength it needed. 

_ Now. One more time. Get. Up. _

It was like swimming upstream, but my legs started moving. I pushed myself off the rock, getting to my knees and then my feet. My bad ankle didn’t want to cooperate, and I had to steady myself on a nearby rock. But I could stand. 

And if I could stand, I could climb. And if I could climb, I could help Rey. 

At that moment, a deep rumble shook the temple. I pulled myself back into the present, refocusing on my surroundings. I could hear screaming, and the ground beneath me was shaking harder and harder. I looked down, beneath the ledge I had landed on, and I could see cracks in the surface. Bits of rock were starting to fall through the canyon. 

_ Climb, Ben! _

With a grimace, I jumped onto the chain running up the middle of the chasm, using the Force to propel me higher and further than normally possible. I cried out as my bad leg slammed into the metal, but I managed to hold on. I had to get to the top. Slowly, fighting off unconsciousness, I pulled myself upwards. My head was pounding. My arms were burning. But I kept moving, drawing strength from the Force, letting it guide me. 

_ I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.  _

I was almost to the top, when I felt the deepest rumble yet shake the temple. The screaming reached a breaking point, and just when I thought the whole place was going to come down on top of my head, there was… silence. 

I stopped, listening intently. No more screaming. No more shaking. Just…. Nothing. 

The tremor in the Force was massive, almost enough to make me lose my balance. The darkness that surrounded this place was slipping away. I looked upwards, and saw bright spots lighting up the sky. Explosions coming from the Sith fleet. But most shocking of all, the overwhelming dark presence I’d felt since I got here, the most powerful dark being I’d ever encountered in my life, was gone. 

Palpatine was dead. 

I breathed a sigh of relief.  _ She did it. It wasn’t for nothing. It’s over. _ I kept climbing to the top, and I was almost there, when I realized something in the newfound silence. 

I couldn’t feel Rey. 

The connection we shared was cut off, cold. Almost as if….  _ no. No! _

My hand grabbed the throne room floor. Just a bit more.

I pulled myself up over the ledge, stifling a cry of pain. I caught my breath, clutching my aching side, and stood up. I caught sight of a crumpled heap at the foot of the destroyed Sith throne. 

I started moving forward almost without knowing it, stumbling over my bad ankle. She had to be okay. She had to. If she was dead, then I failed again. I could forgive myself for Kylo, but if I couldn’t help the last person who still tried to give me a chance… I would never come back from that. The guilt would eat me alive. 

I stumbled again, falling onto my hands and knees.  _ Keep moving.  _ I crawled towards the throne, lifting Rey and turning her to face me. 

_ No! _

Cold, lifeless eyes stared back at me. 

I looked into her face, remembering the look in her eyes as she tried to get me to come with her, to return to the Light. I looked at her, and I saw someone that I’d hurt, badly, but somehow still saw good in me. And I knew that I had failed one final time.

_ No. There was still something _ . I thought back to the fight we had on the Death Star wreck, how she’d given me some of her own life energy to save me. I remembered thinking that I didn’t deserve it. She should have let me die. Now I’m glad she saved me. It made this choice so much easier.

I placed my hand on her stomach, closing my eyes. I reached out to the Force, one last time, feeling the piece of it that tied my life to Rey’s.  _ A dyad in the Force. The two that are one.  _ I felt the energy that bound me to the Force, and channeled it towards Rey’s body. 

I never did anything right in my entire life. Not a damn thing. I failed at being a Jedi. I failed at being a Sith. I killed my father. My mother died, trying to save me. I ruined thousands of innocent lives. I couldn’t see how blind I’d been, how badly I lost my way. Even when I tried to do the right thing, tried to help someone who somehow still saw a person under the mask, I still failed. 

But as I felt my strength slipping away, felt it flowing into Rey’s body, I felt peace. I could do this. I could make this right. Just this once, Ben Solo could make the right choice. 

I felt the last vestiges of power leave me, and flow into Rey. For a moment, as I stared at her, I was worried it wouldn’t work. I felt myself ebbing, growing weaker by the second, but I didn’t care. 

I felt a hand grasp mine. My vision was starting to cloud, but I could see Rey looking at me, confused at first. I heard her say my name, as if I were underwater, but I saw her smile clear as day. I just stared at her. 

_ It worked. I did the right thing.  _

She pressed her lips to mine. I tensed, surprised, as the kiss registered in my jumbled, hazy brain. I remembered her voice, as if a lifetime ago, calling me a monster. She had such venom in her voice then, convinced that I would never be anything other than Kylo Ren. And now she was kissing me, smiling at me, happy that I was there. She didn’t see the monster. She just saw me.

That, more than anything, made the last vestiges of Kylo Ren slip away. I was Ben Solo. And I managed not to let someone down, for a change. 

I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to thank her. For believing in me, for taking care of my mother, for not giving up. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, for hurting her, and the galaxy, so badly. I wanted to tell her that I found the Light again. 

But as I felt the last vestiges of the Force leaving my body, I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. I smiled, with whatever strength I had left, hoping she would understand what I was feeling. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t angry, or vengeful, or in pain. I was at peace.

My eyes were closing. I was numb all over, and my thoughts were hazy. I felt myself falling backwards. 

_ I didn’t die a monster. I came back.  _

The world slipped away.


End file.
